Multi-floor buildings typically contain numerous elevators, escalators, automatic doors, gates, information displays and similar communication means for guiding, directing and transporting people from one place to another in the building. When moving about in the building, to reach his/her destination, the passenger has to issue service requests to the communication system, such as elevator calls, operating commands for automatic doors or service requests relating to the guidance information and other information. Such service requests are generally input manually using push buttons, keypads, touch-screens or other corresponding manually operated user interfaces, which are fixedly mounted in the building or in conjunction with a communication means. For the display of guidance and other information, display panels, signals and/or floor-specific information boards are used. Systems have also been developed in which the passenger can e.g. issue an elevator call using a wireless terminal, such as an RFID transponder or mobile telephone. There may also be restrictions regarding passengers' access to certain parts of the building, in which case the passenger has to use various personal identification methods to gain access to a desired space in the building.
Prior-art solutions have several significant drawbacks. They are ill or not at all suited for situations where the communication system of the building comprises several different communication means providing services that the passenger has to utilize in order to reach his/her destination. The passenger has to issue in the communication system a plurality of successive service requests, such as e.g. elevator calls and operating commands for automatic doors, as it is not possible to enter service requests comprising several operations from the same user interface or terminal device. In such situations, the passenger must use several different user interfaces and/or terminal devices to enter the necessary service requests so as to reach his/her destination or to obtain desired information regarding the building. This naturally retards and complicates the passenger's progress towards the destination. Modern office buildings also typically contain areas of different security levels, for admission to which the passenger is identified using various identification methods or combinations of identification methods, such as electrically readable identification codes and/or PIN codes/passwords. In traditional solutions, in order to access areas having different security levels, the passenger is required to use several access control devices of different types, which increases the complexity of the access control system of the building as well as passengers' traveling in the building.
In prior-art solutions, it is additionally not possible for the passenger to make personal definitions (personalize) as to what services and in what manner he/she is to be provided in the communication system, because the functions of the terminal device are either permanently programmed in the terminal device or the required software and control data for the operation of a given communication means are downloaded into the terminal device instantaneously from a communication server provided with programs and control data whose content the passenger can not manipulate in any way. Therefore, the passenger cannot personalize the content or functionality of the services that he/she is to be provided nor the choice of services he/she is to be provided. Moreover, in those solutions, the process of downloading the software and control data into the terminal device often takes an unreasonably long time before the passenger can enter the desired service request, causing repeated frustration of the passenger. A specific drawback in prior-art solutions is that the passenger is not offered services grouped into logical combinations such that the passenger could easily and quickly select his/her services from a set that best represents his/her needs in different traveling situations.